190 DICTIONARY OF THE VETERINARY ART. 



also of general derangement of the animal functions. Dr. 

 White states that " a farm in Gloucestershire had been given 

 up three successive times in consequence of the loss the own- 

 ers sustained by abortion in their cattle : at length the fourth 

 proprietor, after suffering considerably in his live stock for the 

 first five years, suspected that the water of his ponds, which 

 was extremely filthy, might be the cause of the mischief; he 

 therefore dug three wells upon his farm, and having fenced 

 round the ponds to prevent his cattle from drinking there, 

 caused them to be supplied with the well water in stone troughs 

 erected for the purpose ; and from this moment his live stock 

 began to thrive, and the quality of the butter and cheese made 

 on his farm was greatly improved. In order to show," says 

 the same author, " that the accident of warping may arise from a 

 vitiated state of the digestive organs, I will here notice a few 

 circumstances tending to corroborate this opinion. In 1782, 

 all the cows in possession of farmer D'Euruse, in Picardy, 

 miscarried. The period at which they warped was about the 

 fourth or fifth month. The accident was attributed to the 

 excessive heat of the preceding summer j but as the water 

 they were in the habit of drinking was extremely bad, and 

 they had been kept upon oat, wheat, and rye straw, it appears 

 to me more probable, that the great quantity of straw they 

 were obliged to eat, in order to obtain sufficient nourish- 

 ment, and the injury sustained by the third stomach, in ex- 

 pressing the fluid parts of the masticated or ruminated mass, 

 together with the large quantity of water they drank, while 

 kept on this dry food, was the real cause of their miscarrying." 

 "A farmer at Chareton, out of a dairy of twenty-eight 

 cows, had sixteen slip their calves at different periods of ges- 

 tation. The summer had been very dry, and during the 

 whole of this season, they had been pastured in a muddy place, 

 which was flooded by the Seine. Here the cows were gen- 

 erally up to their knees in mud and water. In 1789, all the 

 cows in a village near Mantes miscarried. All the land in 

 this place was so stiff as to hold water for some time ; and as 

 a vast quantity of rain fell that year, the pastures were for a 



